Cow mobs

The most organised farmers put all the cows close to calving in one area of the shed. Ideally, this area should be close to the calving pens so cows on the point of calving can be slipped into a straw-bedded pen to calve.

By grouping cows close to calving together, it means that there is only one group of animals that needs regular monitoring.

The same applies after calving; they put the colostrum cows and the milking cows for the bulk tank in separate areas. Freshly calved cows join the colostrum mob while cows get drafted out of the colostrum mob when they finish their milk withdrawal period.

Some farmers will have a small third group of antibiotics cows that are being treated for mastitis or some other health issue. Cows with mastitis should be kept separate from other cows to help prevent clean cows from picking up infections from cubicle beds.

Feeding

The best policy is to get milking cows out to grass as soon as possible. Spring grass has a UFL or an energy level of 1.06. Considering 1kg of dried barley has a UFL of 1, this means that there is more energy in grass than barley. Most compound feeds have UFL levels of around 0.95, so grass is at least 0.08 UFLs higher than meal. In terms of digestibility, spring grass has a DMD of about 80%, while the best-quality silages are struggling to hit 72% DMD and most silage on Irish farms is probably closer to the mid 60s in DMD. Spring grass is very high in protein at between 22% and 26%. Therefore, spring grass is a complete feed: high in energy, protein and very digestible.

But the problem is most farms don’t have enough grass in spring to fully feed the herd. Therefore, some level of supplementation in spring is nearly always required. The amount of supplement required is entirely dependent on the herd demand and how much grass is available, with weather and ground conditions being the elephant in the room.

There are three likely feeding scenarios this spring. Some herds will be able to get out to grass day and night, more farms will get some grass into cows, while other farms will struggle to get any grass into cows by nature of geography, climate or management ability. Table 1 gives a breakdown of these three scenarios in terms of energy, protein and the costs incurred in balancing the diet.

The high-grass diet is the lowest-cost, highest-energy and highest-protein diet and animal performance will be best here. If this diet is lacking in anything, it is fibre. Therefore, soya hulls would be an ideal supplement in this case at 40% crude fibre. Beet pulp nuts are also high in fibre. Native rolled barley could be fed here too, but the fibre in barley is low at less than 5% crude fibre. So feeding more than 4kg should be avoided.

The “some grass” scenario presumes 6kg of grass is being fed per day. Because silage needs to be fed in this scenario, the herds’ dietary requirement for energy and protein increases so 3kg of a slightly higher-spec nut or a three-way mix should be fed. In the final example, where no grass is being fed, at least 5kg of a 20% protein nut must be fed to come close to the energy and protein levels of the “high grass” and “some grass” examples. Fibre is less of an issue where silage is being fed.

Grazing

It’s fine to be able to write about grazing in spring, but it’s a different story to actually do it. The challenges are very real – high rainfall, heavy soil types and mediocre grazing infrastructure on many farms.

So what do the high-grass farmers in table 1 below do to get grass into cows? The first thing is that they have a system designed for their farm. That is to say, calving date and stocking rate are suited to the amount of grass the farm is capable of carrying over winter and how much grass the farm is able to grow in spring.

Needless to say, having a dry farm is a big help, but this is probably a secondary factor – heavier farms can compensate somewhat by calving a bit later and having a lower stocking rate and investing more in roadways, drainage and paddocks. This is the cost of heavy land. The unseen cost is the lost output.

For those new to early spring grazing, the first step is to buy a few rolls of polywire and a couple of reels. The geared reels are a little bit more expensive but they are much quicker to reel up afterwards and the new ones have guides to prevent the polywire getting tangled. After that, you need a good bundle of pigtail posts and insulated handles for the end of the reels, and a good electric fencer.

With a bit of time and ingenuity with temporary fences, there is almost nowhere that you can’t take cows. Putting two reels up about 1m apart acts as a single-cow track. Linking two pigtail posts together and sticking them into the ground at an angle acts as a corner post. Some farmers use heavier duty rebars with footplates and insulators for the corners.

The single-cow path limits damage to a small area. While this area is heavily damaged it is a very small area so represents a tiny proportion of the overall farm and saves a much larger area from getting damaged.

Some farmers will put up reels for a number of grazings ahead. This is OK if you are certain about the number of cows that will be out and what they will eat and the weather. It’s very hard to get it right if you go too far ahead. “Getting it right” means getting the allocation right and this can only be judged based on how much grass is left over or the grazing residual. The target is 3.5cm which is a cover of zero.